Enrique's Success Story | Hood River, OR
Enrique was born in Oaxaca Mexico in a small town lacking resources due to poverty. His education was minimal because his parents couldn’t afford to send him to school. He has wanted to become a truck driver as truck drivers in Mexico always seemed to work year round.
As the oldest child in his household, tradition held that it now became his responsibility take care and provide for his elderly parents. However, once he became the Head of the Household he soon realized that he couldn’t provide for his family with wages available in Oaxaca; that is when he decided to move to the U.S. He departed with a broken heart because he had to leave his parents behind with relatives. Like many before him he had high hopes of providing his family with a better life. Enrique had a tough time finding a job when he first arrived here because he only spoke Mixtec a native dialect language from his town. The only job he found was working in the orchard. Even that job had some challenges for him since he was barely able to speak and understand Spanish. |
As the years went by, Enrique learned a little bit more Spanish from his friends at work and was able to send money home to support his family in Oaxaca. He worked in various orchards until 2012 when he heard about OHDC. Without hesitating he visited us in November, and became one of our clients. We were glad to have him, and he knew that he would have to work extra hard to learn English as his third language. We enrolled him in our Rosetta Stone course as a compliment to the local ESL classes provided by the community college.
After six months of being in our program and working diligently in learning English and taking our Job Readiness classes, he felt confident enough to start looking and applying for work outside of agriculture. Enrique applied in several places and was fortunate enough to receive quite a few interviews, but had no luck with getting hired.
We talked with Enrique about his progress and we concluded that he needed additional help communicating in English. So, we initially set a schedule for him to come into our computer lab three days a week. He said “NO” he would come in every day after work and even stated coming in on his days off specifically to use Rosetta Stone to work on his English. Enrique did that for a straight year without giving up and hardly missing a day in the lab. With his English much improved we decided that it was time for him to pursue his dream job and we enrolled him in a truck driving course with Elite Truck School in Hillsboro, OR.
Enrique worked very hard and he threw himself into the course and studied hard in this course as he so much wanted to become a licensed commercial truck driver. Two months later after hard work, sacrifice, and lots of studying he obtained his CDL. He immediately applied at various places including Oregon Child Development Coalition, OCDC, as a bus driver. But, he still didn’t get any job offers because of his limited English skills. He knew he needed work on his English skills once more. He was back in our computer lab every day and he would spend hours each day working thru the different levels of Rosetta Stone, and we also signed him up once more for ESL classes provided by Columbia Gorge Community College. After a few more months and hundreds of hours spent practicing his English he once again started applying for truck driving jobs. It was no surprise to us that he got hired in May of 2015 at J. Arlie Bryant, INC as a short haul truck driver.
We learned from him that if you really want something in life you have to fight for it till the end. Never give up on your dreams, and don’t let any barrier including language set you back. Enrique is currently earning $18.50 an hour and feels proud of himself because he has enough to support his family here and his parents in Oaxaca.
His new goal for the future is to own his own trucking company.
After six months of being in our program and working diligently in learning English and taking our Job Readiness classes, he felt confident enough to start looking and applying for work outside of agriculture. Enrique applied in several places and was fortunate enough to receive quite a few interviews, but had no luck with getting hired.
We talked with Enrique about his progress and we concluded that he needed additional help communicating in English. So, we initially set a schedule for him to come into our computer lab three days a week. He said “NO” he would come in every day after work and even stated coming in on his days off specifically to use Rosetta Stone to work on his English. Enrique did that for a straight year without giving up and hardly missing a day in the lab. With his English much improved we decided that it was time for him to pursue his dream job and we enrolled him in a truck driving course with Elite Truck School in Hillsboro, OR.
Enrique worked very hard and he threw himself into the course and studied hard in this course as he so much wanted to become a licensed commercial truck driver. Two months later after hard work, sacrifice, and lots of studying he obtained his CDL. He immediately applied at various places including Oregon Child Development Coalition, OCDC, as a bus driver. But, he still didn’t get any job offers because of his limited English skills. He knew he needed work on his English skills once more. He was back in our computer lab every day and he would spend hours each day working thru the different levels of Rosetta Stone, and we also signed him up once more for ESL classes provided by Columbia Gorge Community College. After a few more months and hundreds of hours spent practicing his English he once again started applying for truck driving jobs. It was no surprise to us that he got hired in May of 2015 at J. Arlie Bryant, INC as a short haul truck driver.
We learned from him that if you really want something in life you have to fight for it till the end. Never give up on your dreams, and don’t let any barrier including language set you back. Enrique is currently earning $18.50 an hour and feels proud of himself because he has enough to support his family here and his parents in Oaxaca.
His new goal for the future is to own his own trucking company.